On the comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live in the 1980s, Billy Crystal played a character named Fernando who would often whip out his signature catchphrase, “It’s better to look good than to feel good.” Well, we can do you one better, Fernando—landing pages that look good also tend to feel good (to visitors), giving the pages a greater chance of increasing conversion.
This is where landing page design comes into play. Landing pages that are well designed often convert better than those that aren’t, and the difference can be dramatic. Done right, design should support the message on your page and work with all other elements to prompt visitors to take action.
Emily Omier is a freelance content marketing writer who specializes in helping B2B SaaS companies make complicated ideas, products, and USPs engaging and accessible. Check her out on LinkedIn.
Paul is a writer on Unbounce’s content team who lives and breathes storytelling. (It’s like oxygen but with better plotlines!) Ask him what he’s up to at any given moment and you’ll get answers ranging from folding paper dragons (y’know, origami) to catching up on the latest cool tech, and finding other ways to channel his inner geek.
What is landing page design and why is it important?
The design of a landing page includes elements like colors, layout, images, videos, copy, and how all of those pieces fit together. A good landing page design is not only pleasing to the eye, it can also communicate messages more effectively and have a greater overall impact.
While it’s tempting to slap together a simple, barebones, “eh, good enough” landing page design, you’ll definitely get better results if you put some effort into crafting an attractive, well-thought-out design. Your page will look good, and your visitors will feel good as they get what they’re looking for.
Landing page design best practices
So how do you design a landing page that looks so good it deserves a chef’s kiss? Before we jump into some landing page design examples (or feel free to have a look now, if you’re eager), here are some of the features you typically see on great-looking landing pages.
Single focus
A good landing page has only one objective: prompting visitors to do the one action you want them to do and convert. This is why many landing pages don’t have menus or a ton of external links—you want your visitor to complete the call to action, not navigate away or get distracted.
Minimize scrolling
It can be great to include additional information about your offer on a page, but visitors should have everything they need—including the CTA button—without scrolling for days. While long-form landing pages can convert in the case of complex offers, consider using lightboxes to showcase extra info instead of adding tons of page sections.
Relevant, engaging visuals
Striking images can help create amazing design. No matter how technical your offer (see the Panoply example below), you need something to break up the text. Your images should be engaging, relevant, and consistent with your brand. They should also encourage visitors’ eyes to scan the landing page and settle on the CTA button.
Effective copy
Copy is basically the forklift of landing page messaging—it does a lot of the heavy lifting by providing most of the details, features, and benefits of your product or service. It can be tempting to cram your landing page full of copy, but that also makes for a poor reading experience so it’s best to keep the copy as short as possible.
If you’re uncertain how to craft the most effective copy for your landing page, not to worry—we’ve got some tips that can help. And if the idea of writing your own copy gives you the heebie-jeebies, we’ve got your back there, too with our AI landing page copy generator.
Consistent branding
Your landing page design should be consistent with your overall brand visuals so visitors can instantly recognize and associate it with your brand. This typically means using the same color scheme and design elements from your general website.
Research shows that most people’s eyes move around a website in an F or Z pattern. The best landing page design usually takes these patterns into account. For instance, having a vertical visual on the left with the header on the top right and the CTA button a little lower on the right allows visitors to follow an F pattern—and end up with their eyes right on your CTA.
Conversion-centered design
It also goes without saying (but we’ll say it anyway ‘cuz it’s that important) that beauty is not the only thing to consider when evaluating landing page design. You want pages to look good, but they should also convert. If you’re not sure how to hit the sweet spot between design and conversion, check out these seven principles of conversion-centered design to get started.
Some of you might be saying, “But I’m not a designer, and I don’t have the budget to hire one!” AI to the rescue—with Smart Builder you can harness the power of artificial intelligence to generate great-looking, high-converting landing pages in less time than it takes to go out and get your favorite drink from Starbucks.
Before you can give your potential customers what they want, you need to know what they want. Through audience research you can discover what your customers are looking for and then figure out the best ways to nudge them towards clicking on your CTA button.
After you’ve published your landing page it’s time to shift into testing mode. Follow these steps to do landing page testing right and you’ll be able to squeeze every ounce of effectiveness out of the page you’ve put so much work into.
Okay, by now you’re probably ready for some landing page design inspiration. Let’s check out some beautiful designs!
If you’re creating a good-looking landing page, it helps to have an attractive product, which Indochino has covered. The Unbounce-built page above is an example of how Indochino provides not just handsome, tailored suits, but also handsome, tailored landing pages.
What’s awesome about this landing page design:
Great visuals: If you’ve got an attractive product, show it off. We get to see Indochino’s suits modeled here—and the dynamic pose helps visitors see how suave the product looks in the context of use.
Use of space: Just as importantly, visitors have all the information they need without a ton of scrolling. The CTA button is prominent and focused. This page’s design is simple and understated, but it gets the job done.
On-brand: The header text here is in a font that looks similar to the company logo, which helps create a feeling of brand consistency.
If you’re in the wedding industry, like online retailer/gift registry Zola, you know that design matters. The example page above showcases the company’s design savvy by serving up a simple, elegant landing page for brides and grooms-to-be.
What’s awesome about this landing page design:
Consistent branding: It’s not immediately apparent if you’re a first-time visitor, but Zola’s branding uses shades of bluish-grey (see the hearts in the company logo). The backdrop maintains those colors while also providing excellent contrast for the images—that white wedding cake needs a contrasting background to pop.
Simplicity: Zola’s main ecommerce site is pretty busy. If the landing page included any of the standard navigation, visitors might get distracted by clicking around instead of starting their registry, which is the page’s goal. Keeping it simple means more visitors will complete the action instead of wandering aimlessly through the website. This page is perfect for directing their paid ads to as a way to lower cost-per-click.
This Z-pattern landing page designed for Lujo by the conversion gurus at digital agency KlientBoost manages to provide a ton of context while not being overwhelming. You could argue that there are two CTAs here—shopping the collection and watching the video. Lujo gets away with it because the video is presented so discreetly, as an extension of the product photos. It’s clear that the most important CTA on this page is checking out the collection of loungers.
What’s awesome about this landing page design:
Stunning (and consistent) visuals: Not only is the product photography excellent, but it supports the Z pattern of landing page design while reinforcing the brand’s messaging. Lujo’s tagline is “Put life on pause,” and everything about the visuals in this landing page reinforces that branding—from the sunhat resting on the video box to the deck shoes and the iced tea. Design should work hand-in-hand with messaging so that the text and the images combine to create an overall experience that makes sense. Lujo does that well in this landing page.
Obvious USP: Right below the photos, Lujo articulates—with both text and design elements—three unique selling points: free shipping, a five-year warranty, and New Zealand craftsmanship. Finding a way to subtly work those three ideas into the design means the visitor might not need to keep exploring before clicking that CTA button—they see these major benefits and that could seal the deal.
Unlike some of the other examples, data analytics tool Panoply doesn’t have an especially visually attractive product to show off—after all, it’s analytics software and not, say, a snazzy suit. But Panoply’s landing page (designed by Directive Consulting) stands as a gorgeous testament to the fact that design and beauty are important even for technical B2B products and services.
What’s awesome about this landing page design:
Clever visuals: Creatively showing off Panoply’s user interface in a subtle (but clear) way is one of the biggest wins of this landing page. Interesting visuals are always important, even when the product doesn’t lend itself to photography.
Social proof: Including industry awards and a testimonial from GoDaddy above the fold—and doing so in a way that matches the overall design—is another great touch. A visitor doesn’t need to go anywhere else on the landing page to know that industry experts trust Panoply.
Using imagery to evoke a strong emotional reaction might not be easier with any product than food. (People just need one look to tell whether or not they want to put something in their mouths.) Fortunately, Daily Harvest has a great-looking line of healthy snacks, and they’ve made strong design choices to help showcase that on this landing page.
What’s awesome about this landing page design:
Animated visuals: It would have been easy for Daily Harvest to use a static image of one of their smoothies here, but the brand takes it one step further. This animated hero shot is engaging—the smoothie looks like something I could have right now, if it weren’t for this darn computer screen—and the how-to GIFs help me immediately understand how this service works.
Product examples: The rest of the landing page is arranged with loads of lovely product images. It’s one thing to tell me you’ve got a huge catalog of nutritious treats—it’s another to show me actual examples of the meals I can order after I sign up.
Fashion is all about social identity, and it’s essential for brands to exhibit attributes that consumers want to ascribe to themselves: qualities like authenticity, quality, and cool. This landing page for footwear brand Greats (built by WITHIN) does a beautiful job of brand-building through design while still driving visitors to convert.
What’s awesome about this landing page design:
Amazing video: This whole landing page is pretty sleek, but what really knocks it out of the park is the video just below the fold. Not only does the stop-motion animation style look awesome, but it also gives Greats a chance to elaborate on their unique selling proposition—one stitch at a time.
Rule of threes: Greats applies the rule of threes throughout this layout, making the benefit statements both visually striking and easily digestible.
If we do say so ourselves, this landing page is great at immediately communicating why marketers will want to explore our Concierge plans. When visitors land on this page the first things they see are an attention-grabbing headline, a striking image, a benefit-filled description, and a clear CTA—all of which combine to create a quick impression of just how helpful and useful the Concierge plans are. If this service is what visitors are looking for, it’s a sure bet they’ll scroll down and check it out.
What’s awesome about this landing page design:
Balance between images and text: Most of the text throughout the page is accompanied by images, which creates a nice visual balance and avoids the “wall of text” phenomenon that reduces readability.
Multiple CTAs: Having CTA buttons near the top and middle of the page, both of which link to the form at the bottom, gives visitors multiple opportunities to engage. This also saves them the trouble of having to manually scroll all the way down to the bottom to fill out the form and request a demo.
Chatbot: For any visitors who want an immediate response to their questions, the chatbot in the lower right corner provides a quick and frictionless way to get quick answers.
The design of this page is kind of like motor oil—it reduces friction and helps things move along smoothly. If you’re interested in making some cash by driving for Lyft, this landing page makes it super easy to get started.
What’s awesome about this landing page design:
Simple and direct design: The designers of this page made the (good) decision to strip away absolutely everything except what absolutely needs to be here. From the short copy to the white space-filled design, this entire page is laser-focused on streamlining the process of becoming a Lyft driver.
Supporting benefits and details: What if a visitor lands on this page but they haven’t yet decided if they want to drive for Lyft? No problem—by scrolling down the page they’re presented with clear, easy-to-understand benefits of being a Lyft driver, how the program works, and some FAQs.
Just a few decades ago, the idea of being able to access the entire world’s repository of knowledge felt like something that was only seen in science fiction. Now, thanks to the internet, anyone across the globe can share what they know with students in any country.
Thinkific’s platform provides a seamless way to create online courses and share them with the world, and this landing page makes it easy to understand how it all works.
What’s awesome about this landing page design:
Easy navigation: Just below the hero image and copy you’ll find a horizontal row with five features of Thinkific’s platform. This makes it easy to see what information is contained on the page, and jump directly to the one that interests you most.
Social proof: Below the five main features visitors will find testimonials from two of Thinkific’s happy customers, with short quotes describing why Thinkific works so well for them. As social animals, we humans pay a lot of attention to the thoughts and opinions of the people around us, which is why social proof can be so influential.
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“I hate snacks” is a statement that has been said by no one ever, because snacks are awesome. SnackMagic is a recurring program that makes it easy to provide yummy snacks to workplace teams, no matter where they’re located.
What’s awesome about this landing page design:
Playful tone: Just like you’d expect from a service that’s all about snacks, the tone and design of this page are fun and light-hearted. From the hero image of two people enjoying some tasty treats on the couch to the tone of the copy (“Easy peasy, snacks orders made breezy”), the entire page speaks to the spirit-lifting appeal of snacks.
Variety of visual elements: The images scattered throughout the page are composed of a mixture of photos, infographics, screenshots, and icons. The designers understood that each type of visual element has their own unique strengths and made sure to use the ones that worked best for each situation.
At the end of the day, when it comes to creating beautiful, effective landing pages, it’s about combining a sense of design with an understanding of how people behave when browsing the web. When you’re designing your next landing page, get the best of both worlds by watching your CTA placement, sourcing product photos and visuals, balancing header text, and ensuring your design elements both look good and drive conversions.
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